NOS Black Beauty's

[stingray_65]

On my weekly trip to the antique stores here in Blissfield I found another TV repairmans case. He's asking $25 for it and it's a neat small case in great shape and it has the nice RCA logo on it and some quip about how good they are.

It's only got 20 tubes in it, but in the bottom there were about 10 small plastic cases full of unused black beauty sprauge caps.

do these type of caps go bad just sitting around if they've never been used?

I feel these could be the real gem in this if they are desirable values.

thanks
Ray

[Prairie Dawg]

On my weekly trip to the antique stores here in Blissfield I found another TV repairmans case. He's asking $25 for it and it's a neat small case in great shape and it has the nice RCA logo on it and some quip about how good they are.

It's only got 20 tubes in it, but in the bottom there were about 10 small plastic cases full of unused black beauty sprauge caps.

do these type of caps go bad just sitting around if they've never been used?

I feel these could be the real gem in this if they are desirable values.

thanks
Ray

The answer to that is *maybe*. I had a couple kits of C-D cubs that were new and every one of them leaked so bad that they were worthless to own and dangerous to use in any place where there's power. On the other hand if they're in a tone circuit like in a guitar they're not very highly loaded.

My only experience with bumble bees was when one let go inside a radio I had. KaPOW! a cloud of smoke came out the back. The molded bakelite or plastic body of the capacitor had split in two with such force it cracked the plastic body of the radio cabinet.

The only way to know this for sure is to test them on something that will do the job at working voltage. I'll bet that old radio man has a capacitance bridge with a magic eye hidden somewhere.

[dai h.]

same. I wouldn't use those anywhere there is voltage on them. In some quarters they are valuable (esp. the older "bumble bee" type). I'd guess due to people using them in guitars (particularly Les Pauls?) for the tone cap. The ones I have of those type seemed to usually be leaky plus I've even found one (CDE Black Cat) that was shorted so those type I don't think of as holding up well over the years.

[stingray_65]

I picked up the tube caddy this morning.

Not all the boxes were full, so I consolidated them.

there are 6 values
10 @ .1uf 600v 6TM P10
5 @ .05uf 600v 6TM S50
4 @ .01uf 600V 6TM S10
7 @ .005uf 600V 6TM D5
4 @ .002uf 600V 6TM D2

Some decent tubes in there too,
NOS 6AX5GT Tung-Sol x2
NOS 12AZ7 Tung-Sol x2
NOS 12AT7 GE x2
NOS 6V6GT Raytheon brown base
NOS 6V6GT GE

There is also a Tung-Sol 12SN7 (mu20) and a Raytheon 12V6GT that would make a neat SE amp with 12 V heaters

[Diablo]

There are two styles of Sprague black beauty caps from that era. The ones you have appear to be mylar film and aluminum foil. The other type is the oil and paper type, which have a larger seal on one end where the lead goes in. Info on the net says that the paper in oil caps can be leaky - voltage wise. On the other hand, there is no reason for the mylar film and foil caps to deteriorate with age. I came across a stash of the film/foil caps too, and used them in my Tweed Bassman clone. Every one worked perfectly well, and the amp sounds great. In some cases, I had to double up the caps in parallel because I didn't have the correct value called for in the schematic.

[tedmich]

used ones can run $25 each on the Ebay....no idea why....

[stingray_65]

WOW!

I thought I put a ridiculous price of $60 on E Bay for the lot of 30 caps

they sold in less than 3 minutes!

I think I'm gonna buy an OT with my new found loot.

Ray

[dai h.]

have you ever seen angela instruments? Some old caps are worth a bit such as bumbleebees found in Les Pauls, Philips "mustard" caps in Marshall amp values, etc.

[tedmich]

have you ever seen angela instruments? Some old caps are worth a bit such as bumbleebees found in Les Pauls, Philips "mustard" caps in Marshall amp values, etc.

"are worth" = "someone will pay"?

I wouldn't pay $1 for any 40 year old cap...

Did you see the x-ray some guy made of the "new" bumblebee caps? You can see the little film cap inside...



or used 1950 vintage $100 each:
original set of 1950 's bumble bee caps for les paul - eBay (item 360189862161 end time Oct-15-09 17:14:42 PDT)

[billyz]

Diablo is right. not all Bumble bees are the same. The ones with the little nipple on one end are suspect. But the Bees without the nipple are polyester film and foil and seldom go bad. BTW, they used a PCB dielectric and sound great.

[dai h.]

"are worth" = "someone will pay"?

I wouldn't pay $1 for any 40 year old cap...

Did you see the x-ray some guy made of the "new" bumblebee caps? You can see the little film cap inside...

or used 1950 vintage $100 each:
original set of 1950 's bumble bee caps for les paul - eBay (item 360189862161 end time Oct-15-09 17:14:42 PDT)

the ones with the film cap inside, are those fake or the new ones from Gibson they had made for some of their Les Pauls?

What I would pay depends on what the specific cap was(is). A buck for say, a hermetically sealed Sprague oil cap in a common guitar amp value (22n or whatever) to me would be worth a buck (or actually more). Some of the prices and ideas that seem to be behind the value are silly but if someone wants to pay a lot, then that's just going to be. I think there are different elements behind the value besides the function (or non-function with old leaky caps ) such as nostalgia, status, "exact parts" syndrome, ignorance (might be the same exact thing avail. that just has a different outer appearance or brand), etc. which can add to the perceived value and worth, so some cap to someone might not be "just some old cap" but the exact brand/period/series/era that was used in the holy grail '59
Les Paul and (besides the qualities of the instrument itself) all sort of associations with it (music, culture, etc.).